Can't Sleep
Entrance… I can’t sleep. I swallowed the nauseating feeling and lay down on the bed, but the sight of my sister in that disgraceful state wouldn’t leave my mind. Still, I couldn’t leave this room. If I did, those vulgar sounds would definitely reach me. I paced around the cramped, soundproof booth with nowhere to go, then finally sat in front of the computer and stared at my own blurry reflection on the dark monitor. My reflection was too hazy to make out clearly, but the purple hair stood out. …Since I’ll be resting for a while anyway, maybe I should dye it black again. I’ll be coloring it something else for the next schedule, so during the break I can do whatever I want. If I were to change it, black felt right. After all, it’s the color that draws the least attention. Even if the manager isn’t caught, it would be harder for anyone to notice me. And it wasn’t just the manager. I didn’t want anyone to recognize me anymore.
“…”
Out of habit, I turned on the computer like last time. As expected from a man with zero security awareness, this computer was also protected by nothing more than a four-digit password. On a whim, I tried the same code, and sure enough, it unlocked easily. There was no need to go digging for whatever else he might be hiding; a cosplay folder sat right there on the desktop, bold as anything. I opened it.
“…Hah.”
More of the same stories that followed my sister’s YouTube videos from last time. I didn’t even need to play them to know. The angles were identical. The locations were identical. Several thumbnails were filled with skin tones. Watching any more was pointless. The same thing was probably happening in that man’s room right now anyway. Unlike them, I didn’t have that kind of hobby.
“…I should just go.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. Even if it was dangerous, I wanted to go back to my own place. Earlier, fear had paralyzed my judgment, but not anymore. Outsiders couldn’t even get inside the building in the first place. Even if someone tried to sneak in pretending to be a delivery person, they couldn’t use the elevator without a key. …I’ll just go back. I’d calmed down enough by now. I shut off the computer with its whirring fan and left the room without hesitation. The moment I opened the soundproof booth door, my sister’s moans echoed through the space and tormented me, but I forced myself to ignore them. I trudged out, covered my ears, slipped on my slippers, and opened the front door. Escaping that vulgar place, I stood in front of the elevator and waited for the numbers to change. Floor by floor, the elevator that had been rising nonstop from the first floor finally arrived. As the doors opened, a familiar figure stepped out.
“…Jia?”
Black cap, dark mask, dark skirt, black backpack, black choker. The only bright color was the pink shirt, and the white hair peeking out from under the cap made it obvious who she was the moment I saw her.
“…Hinami, you…”
My colleague, my friend, and Kang Juhyuk’s girlfrie—, no. His sex friend. Hinami.
“Jia, what are you doing here…?”
Her small face was more than half-covered by the mask. When she saw me, she flinched in surprise, her already large eyes widening even more as she covered her hidden mouth with her palm. That naive reaction pissed me off so much. I grabbed my friend’s shoulders, stared at the floor, and shouted.
“I told you not to come out, you crazy bitch…!”
“Eh, why are you suddenly like this…?”
“What if the manager was hiding nearby? I told you not to come out! Did you even call the director?”
“I did! That’s why I came to a safe place because I thought it might be dangerous to be alone…”
I didn’t want to hear that excuse. Safe or not—none of that mattered.
“Shut up.”
You just came to see Kang Juhyuk, didn’t you? Just like my sister, you crawled in at this late hour because you wanted to fuck.
“I’m kind of confused, Jia. Why are you angry?”
“…You heard the director say that crazy manager bastard went missing and they’re looking for him.”
“I know that… That’s why I took a taxi. The area right in front is well-lit and there are quite a few people, so it’s fine…”
“I almost got drugged and raped by that bastard in a well-lit parking lot!”
“That’s… because you thought he was just a normal manager, right?”
“…”
I knew my words weren’t logical. I also knew that Hinami coming here wasn’t that dangerous. Even so, I couldn’t stop the irritation boiling in my chest. …It was just that. I could barely go outside because I almost got raped, yet everyone around me was acting like nothing had happened, pretending they weren’t scared, rationalizing everything to themselves while indulging in pleasure. Seeing that made me sick.
“…Jia, calm down first. Oh, now that I think about it, I asked earlier too. Why are you here…?”
“…I thought my sister was here, so I came to stay with her.”
“Didn’t Haeun say she was staying out?”
“You know that well. …But she came back earlier.”
“…Really?”
“She was probably scared he’d cheat on her with you behind her back.”
“…”
Looking down at my friend who was a month older but much smaller than me, I sneered at her in a tone completely devoid of affection. I didn’t care if she called me a bitch for having a bad personality. It wasn’t a lie anyway. You’ve done plenty of awful things to me too.
“…Go in if you want. Ignore me and go inside. You’re here to fuck anyway, the three of you.”
I had believed she would never do something like that because of our friendship, but she was the one who sent those vulgar photos and videos to my phone. She was the one having loud sex in the bathroom where it echoed all the way upstairs. On the day I almost got raped by the manager, she got caught meeting Kang Juhyuk and didn’t say a single word of excuse, acting like it was the most natural thing in the world. Even after all that, I still cared enough to say all kinds of things to Kang Juhyuk, yet she came crawling here to fuck him during such a dangerous time, completely forgetting any sense of professional ethics. I didn’t want to think about protecting her or anything like that anymore. If that manager bastard ends up in prison, I wouldn’t feel the slightest pity even if her scandal blew up at the same time.
“Hey, Jia…”
“Go in. …You’re closer to my sister than I am anyway, right?”
Why did I ever make a bitch like this my friend? Why is that kind of bitch my sister? At this point, Kang Juhyuk didn’t even seem that hateful anymore. What sin did that bastard commit? He was just fucking women who threw themselves at him.
“…”
Even while hesitating and glancing at me, she would eventually go inside and act cute in front of Kang Juhyuk anyway. If I told her to choose between me and Kang Juhyuk, she would pick him without hesitation and moan while getting fucked. My sister was the same.
“…Hah.”
Without even looking at Hinami as she disappeared from view, I stepped into the empty elevator. One floor up. I walked down the empty hallway to the place where I could have time to myself and entered my apartment. The cool summer night air hit me as I returned to my room and buried my face in the bed. Unlike that filthy room earlier, the pillow smelled clean. I lay there for a long time, intoxicated by that warmth, then took out my phone and opened that crazy manager bastard’s Twitter.
…If this were a horror movie, there would’ve been a photo of him hiding somewhere in my house. Fortunately, there wasn’t. But even so, I posted on my secret account that only one person followed, along with a photo of a dark room.
…Would that man even see it? If he saw it, would he come? While fucking those two he liked so much, would he come all the way here because he was worried about my safety—the one he hated? I wouldn’t know the answer right away, but I would find out soon enough in the near future. No matter what the result was, there was no harm to me. If he didn’t come, the mood would be ruined, which would be pleasant for me. If he came, I could just laugh at him, which would also be entertaining.
“Puh…”
Letting out a half-crazed laugh, I got up from the bed and waited endlessly for him to arrive. Whether he came or not, Kang Juhyuk would still be trash. But whether he was trash only to me… or to those two as well… that could change.
**
…This is driving me crazy. Right after I came inside Haeun so thoroughly, Hinami barged in. Of course Haeun tried to kick her out, saying she came to steal, and Hinami made excuses about telling her that her sister had returned. While the two of them bickered, I slipped away and was about to quickly rewind the recorded video when I noticed a ‘1’ on the tweet notification that shouldn’t have been there. Out of habit, I tapped the app.
Fucking bitch
Along with a photo so dark it was impossible to distinguish anything except the traces on the bed. The vulgar curse was clearly directed at someone. The moment I saw it, I rushed out of the bathroom and quickly checked the soundproof booth and Haeun’s room, but I couldn’t find Seo Jia anywhere in the house.
…She must be upstairs. Seo Jia, and that manager too. I could understand why she ran upstairs. No younger sister would want to hear her older sister having sex. But seeing this tweet, all I could say was that she was stupid. No matter how good the building’s security was, if someone didn’t fear getting caught, it wasn’t impossible to get in. If I met her, I wanted to curse her out, but now wasn’t the time to think about that. If this led to rape or murder… my life wouldn’t stay intact. This wasn’t a matter of liking or disliking. It was a matter of right or wrong. If things escalated, neither Haeun, Hinami, nor I would ever be able to return to how things were before.
“…”
Just in case I got stabbed, I put on the clothes I had hidden in the laundry basket, grabbed the shoehorn in my left hand, and went upstairs without the girls noticing. It was lucky I had memorized the password when I went to the nursing home with Haeun last time. I ran to the woman’s door and quickly entered the code I remembered. But the first attempt failed. Thinking I might have pressed it wrong because I was in a hurry, I swallowed and tried to enter the password more carefully this time, but—
“Huh…”
The door suddenly swung open, and someone standing in the dark entrance grabbed me and pulled me inside. …A chilling voice whispered in my ear.
“You know this is trespassing, Kang Juhyuk-ssi?”
I couldn’t shake off that horrible breath.
“…”
…That crazy bitch. She kicked the front door shut with her foot. And this time, it was the opposite of before. She had blocked the entrance herself.